


you can always count on me

by mrtheparty



Category: Andi Mack (TV)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Jonah Loves His Friends And They Love Him, Panic Attacks, Platonic Relationships, Tags to be added, autistic jonah beck, i cant remember the chronological order of am events but itll cover jonahs main ones, mentions of jamber and jandi, neuro divergence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 12:59:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17550152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrtheparty/pseuds/mrtheparty
Summary: Jonah was never good with feelings. He just wasn’t a sensitive guy, he told himself. The feelings of others often came as foreign ideas, facial expressions without meaning, words lost in translation between his mind and his mouth.





	you can always count on me

Jonah was never good with feelings. He just wasn’t a sensitive guy, he told himself. The feelings of others often came as foreign ideas, facial expressions without meaning, words lost in translation between his mind and his mouth. When his mom would cry watching a movie, his younger self would ask, ‘Are you okay? Is it really that sad?’ and she would laugh along with him and tell him he was lucky not to have to cry during scenes like that. 

It wasn’t like he never felt _anything,_ he just cared about different things than the people around him. That was okay, he told himself, everyone can’t be expected to care about the same things as each other. Jonah cared about Ultimate, to the point where he got called a disc-head on a regular basis. He got emotional when they lost, and excited when they won. 

With Amber, she never _understood,_ per say, but if she had bothered to think about it, she probably would have _gotten it,_ with all the colloquial differences separating the synonymous phrases. She was never necessarily touchy-feely either, in all their time dating, which came a relief. Jonah wasn’t sure if she even wanted a relationship, or if she just thought she was supposed to be in one. Jonah got that. He didn’t know what he wanted most of the time either. 

At least with Amber she told him to do things explicitly, not just hinted at what she wanted. Jonah could appreciate that. It wasn’t like he didn’t realise he was being manipulated, it was just a relief to not have to overthink his own actions for a while. She didn’t leave much room for him to wonder where he stood with her, unlike other people he was friends with. 

Eventually of course, that had to end. It wasn’t a healthy basis for a relationship – especially not one neither of them actually wanted to be in.

* * *

Jonah’s emotions seemed to have two switches. 0% or 100%. The most extreme example of this was at Cyrus’ bar mitzvah. 

The music was still thrumming inside, the guests were filtering down the stairs, Andi was with that caricature artist, Cyrus and Buffy were nowhere to be found, his suit felt like it was constricting around him, Jonah had no idea where he was, could he breathe? Was he breathing? It didn’t feel like it. The sky spun and he stumbled to a stone seat, gasping and now he was breathing too much. He couldn’t hear himself, but his mouth was stuttering the word, ‘Help!’ over and over through the static in his mind. 

“Jonah?”

The one to hear him was TJ. He rushed down the stairs towards Jonah, as he sat shaking. 

“Hold on, I’ll go get some help.”

“Don’t leave!”

“I’ll be right back.”

It may have been a minute, it may have been an hour, but Jonah was left again shaking and not knowing where he was or what he was doing, but simultaneously feeling like he was everywhere, doing everything. He didn’t hear TJ return, with another person in tow until Norman placed a hand on his back. 

“Now, Jonah, I need you to breathe with me. That’s it, sit up if you can. Breathe in,” Norman paused, “Breathe out. Can you do that for me, Jonah? Just follow along with me.”

He tried his best, through all his rasping and wheezing, to follow along. What felt like an eternity later, he heard Norman say in an aside to TJ – had he been there the whole time? – “Can you go fetch us a glass of water?” TJ nodded and left them alone to continue the breathing exercises. 

After TJ returned, Norman thanked him for his help and suggested he had better return to the party. With one more worried glance at Jonah TJ nodded, said, “Hope you feel better, man,” and headed back up the stairs. 

Norman turned back to Jonah.

“Drink.”

Jonah did.

“I thought I was dying.”

“You’ve had a panic attack. Did something upset you or make you anxious or overwhelmed?”

Jonah looked at Norman.

“…Yeah, kinda.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Norman jostled his arm, “We can, you know. Doctor, patient confidentiality!”

Jonah shook his head.

“Well, panic attacks can be very scary, but the symptoms are temporary. Remember that if it happens again.”

The calm Jonah had just felt after cooling down? Replaced by a spike of anxiety.

“It’s going to happen _again?”_

“It… might. I treat kids younger than you who have them every day.”

“I can’t go through that every day!” 

“I’m sorry, I… I didn’t mean to suggest you would. Let – let me get Cyrus, he can translate for me.”

Norman stood, but Jonah said, “No!” and stood with him. 

“Don’t get Cyrus, I don’t want him to know about this. Or Andi or Buffy.”

“Your friends aren’t going to think any differently of you.”

“Yeah, they will. I think differently about me.”

“They care about you. They can help you, if you let them.”

“I’d rather just go home,” Jonah shook his head, before smiling up at him with an expression of ease, “Thank you for the party, it was great! Except for the part where I thought I was dying.”

That made Norman huff a laugh, and Jonah was free to go. Before he left Norman said, in an aside, “You may want to research sensory overload or anxiety. It may come in handy,” before greeting Jonah’s mom at their car. 

Jonah smiled and waved as they drove off and as his mom asked him how it went, dove into a spiel on how much fun Cyrus had. He tried not to think about the rest.

**Author's Note:**

> this is supposed to be a journey through Jonah's perspective as he goes through the canon events of andi mack and discovers his neurodivergence - specifically that he is autistic and has severe anxiety. jonah isnt canonically autistic but he shows traits that i as an autistic person relate to and i wanted to explore his relationship with those traits. most scenes will be canon but there may be some canon divergence. i probs wont have a regular update schedule B/
> 
> im on tumblr! @mrtheparty


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